RHEL7.5, GUI fails to start - i7-8700 CPU (intel 630 video card)

Hello,

This is driving me nuts and not sure where to go with this (other then punt over to Fedora perhaps).

System is a new i7-8700 pc using the integrated Intel 630 video (only has VGA or HDMI ports). Am using the box as a home lab. When installing I was only able to install the OS using a text version of the installer (but I did select Server with GUI when picking my packages). Completed that, but upon reboot, the server starts a GUI (usual gray Gnome screen with a small spinning icon) then falls back to CLI after a few seconds.

Being such a new chipset/video card, I went about getting the repos installed (making sure to subscribe to get the latest updates) and updated the system (now 3.10.0-862.6.3.el7.x86_64). Still no luck.

Googled further and applied the i915.alpha_support=1 flag to grub. Still doesn't start. As a last gasp from googling, I also set i915.enable_guc_loading=-1 (which is auto mode, so it can start if necessary). None of my attempts have solved this issue.

Any suggestions??

Thanks!
Shawn